Tanksgiving 2022 -- with pictures!

[Iron Father Ferrum]

My LGS -- Your Hobby Place in Martinsburg, WV -- held a Tanksgiving event today, where each person was supposed to contribute 2,000 points per person of models with any of (and only!) the following keywords: Vehicle, Monster, Gargantuan Creature, Primarch.  Anyone who brought super-heavies instead of the 2K army would have them spread across the two sides to even things out.  I brought my Iron Hands who, despite being surrounded by Titans, were actually the stars of the match.  Additionally, folks in the store's FB page could contribute blind orbital fire each turn using a grid-reference system; most of the ortillery hit my opponents but the T3 shots landed square on my spearhead.  Nothing died, but the damage was, so to speak, done.

 

I brought the following:

 

Land Raider Excelsior

Rhino Primaris

Land Raider Redeemer

2x Vindicators

Hunter

Razorback with twin lascannons

Gladiator Valiant

2x Ironclad Dreadnoughts

Venerable Dreadnought

2x Storm Talons with lascannons

 

It was me and two Eldar players (fielding between one Phantom, two Revenants, one Cobra, one Vampire Hunter, one Nightwing, one Wraith Lord, one Avatar of Khaine, and I think three Wraith Knights...and a Warhound Titan to even the field) versus a mixed Chaos/Renegade Guard/Tyranid force with a Warbringer Nemesis Titan, a Harridan, two Chaos Land Raiders, two Chaos Predators, a Baneblade, a ton of Leman Russ Vanquishers, and more Tyranid big bugs that you could shake a stick at.  We used a home-grown variant of the Apocalypse rules, so models that were technically dead didn't get pulled until the very end of the turn.  This was done to avoid the hard feelings of someone bringing their nice big shiny Titan to the table only to get it blitzed off turn one without ever having a chance to do anything, and resulting in some pretty interesting results.

 

So here was the set-up.  My Iron Hands armor column set up in the middle of the southern deployment zone, with Eldar formations flanking to the left and right.  The Warbringer stood opposite, with the Word Bearers and Renegade Guard on my left and most of the bugs on my right.

 

After deployment:

 

 

By the end of the first turn, I had lost a few wounds on one Storm Talon and had one Vindicator blown off the table, but by and large was ignored by most of the enemy combatants as they were were too busy shooting at each other's super-heavies.  In turn, I actually got to shoot at an AIRCRAFT with my Hunter and struck it for 11 wounds; otherwise I was mostly blowing xenos gribblies away from the center of the table.

 

Here's after Turn Two's movement:

 

I pushed further up the middle, splitting my column.  The LRR and the Dreadnoughts went left to buttress the Eldar on that flank who were getting mauled by the Guard armor, while the majority of my heavy hitters went point-blank on the Warbringer.  In the end, it was the Excelsior who felled the giant Titan, though it took everything but the Vindicator to claw the last 40-odd wounds off of it.  My brand new Gladiator was instrumental in this as his lastalons and meltas really pounded that thing.

 

Turn Three after movement:

The Renegade Guard and Word Bearers have recoiled on my left flank, as the last remaining Eldar over there is the Avatar (who just keeps absorbing fire with his invulnerable save like it was going out of style) in order to focus on me instead after the immense slapping I gave the Warbringer.  Of the tanks in this picture, both Land Raidiers, the Razorback, and the Gladiator will all die at the end of the turn and both Ironclads will survive with only one wound each.  My return fire picked up both Predators and a Leman Russ, and the Ironclads tore another Russ to shreds in close combat.  Props to the Avatar, by the way, who took a charging Baneblade to the face and promptly split it in half with his spear.

 

 

Top of Four, there's not much left on the table.  On the right flank, the Eldar have one near-full health Wraith Knight (you can see its guns sticking out from behind the rock formation) facing down two remaining Nids, while on the left I pressed forward with my Dreadnought talon and fighter squadron.  In the end, I would kill the remaining Chaos Land Raider, one Nid, and one of the two Leman Russes.  In return I would lose the Hunter and both Storm Talons.

 

 

Turn Five after movement sees the Avatar and my Venerable Dreadnought moving in on the flank while my Vindicator and command Rhino press the center -- and you can see the Eldar/Tyranid slapfight on the far end of the table in this shot as well.  On this final turn, the dakka-fex killed the Rhino Primaris, but the Vanquisher could not put paid to either the Dreadnought or the Vindicator; I got hot on armor saves and FNPs, especially for the Ven Dred who had the 5+FNP warlord trait on him.  Both ended the fight on 3 wounds remaining.  The Vindicator killed the Leman Russ and the Ven Dred killed the Carnifex.

 

The "Order" side -- Iron Hands & Eldar -- were deemed the winners because we had more models and more remaining wounds on the table than the Chaos side.  Victory for the Iron Hands!

 

Many thanks to Ben, Jordan, Alex, Chris, and Andrew for playing; more thanks to Ben for running the event; and most of the thanks to YHP for hosting.  Until next year!

Edited November 26, 2022 by Iron Father Ferrum

[Vel'Cona]

Looks like a dope event, brother!  THE FLESH IS WEAK, MORE TANKS!